


A Use for Pennies

by KTC10



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Ice Play, M/M, Orgasm Control, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Spanking, Tickling
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-29
Updated: 2013-07-03
Packaged: 2017-12-16 12:52:22
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/862236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KTC10/pseuds/KTC10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock knew he was in for a long afternoon the moment John came home from the surgery and ordered him to strip.  He should have expected it really.  Surely John would not just forgive and forget the grave transgression he had made last night when he had cum without permission.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Not beta'd or Brit picked. I actually panicked half way thru writing this because I wasn't sure that the UK still uses pennies (hey, Canada doesn't).

Sherlock knew he was in for a long afternoon the moment John came home from the surgery and ordered him to strip. He should have expected it really. Surely John would not just forgive and forget the grave transgression he had made last night when he had cum without permission. 

He had tried desperately to hold back so as not to disobey John’s most important rule, but it was impossible. It had been a week since Sherlock had been allowed release when his blogger decided to do a write up of their most recent case. Due to his tendency to be interrupted during his posting by the detective in question, he had remedied the situation in a rather interesting way. Sherlock had been strapped to one of the kitchen chairs just across from where John sat inefficiently typing away with his favorite blue scarf acting as a gag. Unfortunately for Sherlock, John had decided that this would be too boring for the clever man and left him with a prostate massager whirling away inside him as well a vibrator secured along the underside of his cock. 

After realizing that there was no way he could ask for the required permission with the gag in his mouth, Sherlock tried everything he could think of to stave off his release. When naked thoughts of Mycroft and Anderson were unable to help him, he had lost control and came all over himself. John had looked over, shaken his head in disappointment, told Sherlock he wasn’t finished with the blog yet, and continued working. Sherlock had hoped that the following agonizing twenty minutes of continued stimulation on his oversensitive cock and prostate until John had finally closed his laptop and walked over to turn the vibrators had been his punishment. Apparently, he had been wrong. 

Once he had fully disrobed and placed all of his clothing into an organized pile, as per the soldier’s requirements, John began to speak in a controlled voice. 

“You seem to be having a problem with self-control. I thought you could handle yourself for a measly half hour while I worked, but apparently I was wrong.” Despite the control in his voice, Sherlock could tell that John was at least annoyed, possibly angry. He rushed to defend himself.

“But John, I tried to ask for permission or for you to turn down the vibrators, but the scarf-”

John interrupted his explanation with a much less controlled voice. “I don’t want your excuses. We have one rule in this flat. What is it?”

“Don’t do anything without asking you first because you know best. But it had been a week and I tried so hard-”

“I don’t care. You are only making this worse on yourself by talking back. If you say that you tried, than you are only further proving my point that your self-control is lacking. Hopefully, your lesson will help you improve. Don’t you want to make yourself better for me?”

Sherlock lowered his head in defeat and nodded. 

“Good, then we can get started. Now, stand over there facing the wall with your feet spread.” As he watched Sherlock comply, he walked over to stand behind him and continued talking.

“I’ve always hated pennies.” Sherlock frowned in confusion about the apparent non-sequitor, but said nothing. “They’re covered in germs and worth nearly nothing, nevermind a pain in the arse to carry around. I’ve always just stuck them in a jar on my desk and waited to think of something to do with them. Today at the surgery, I finally thought of something while trying decide how to help your little problem.”

John pulled a handful of pennies out of his pocket and walked around Sherlock so that he could see what he was holding. “You see these pennies? I think you care about as much about following orders and keeping control of yourself as I care about these pennies.” Sherlock started to open his mouth to argue, to persuade John that he cared about him, but one glare from John and he remained silent.

“Oh good, you’re learning to keep your mouth shut. Let’s get to it then, shall we?” With a nod from Sherlock, he continued. “Right, what I want you to is bend over so that your torso is nearly parallel to the floor and your nose is touching the wall. You may use your fingers to balance on the wall, but you may not touch your palms to the wall. Do you understand?”

Sherlock showed his understanding by complying with the orders as quickly as possible. The position was uncomfortable to hold, but certainly not impossible. John hummed in appreciation, both of the view of Sherlock’s arse and his quick obedience. “Alright, now that you’re in place, it’s time for you to see what these pennies are for. I am going to place a penny under each one of your fingers and under your nose. You need to control yourself, and hold them in place for the next hour.”

John started the process of placing the pennies under each finger on his right hand one at a time, than shifted over to his left. When both hands were done, he placed the last one under his nose before he stroked his hand down Sherlock’s back and gave him a light smack on the arse. Sherlock flinched in reaction. 

“Careful Sherlock, you don’t want to drop one. Here’s the way this is going to work. If you make it through the entire hour without dropping any of the pennies, I will know that you have learned your lesson and I will let you cum. However you want. But, if you don’t last, for every penny you drop, I will add a day to your punishment. On each day of your punishment, I will bring you to the edge of orgasm once for every penny you dropped without letting you come. So if you only drop one penny in the whole hour, I will edge you once today and let you come tomorrow. But if you drop ten pennies, I will edge you ten times a day for the next ten days. And if you drop all eleven, after the eleventh day of edging, we’ll try this lesson again. Do you understand?”

Sherlock started to nod before realizing that the action might disrupt the penny between his nose and the wall. “Yes, sir.” 

“Good. I’ll be back in a few minutes with some…tools.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sherlock's first challenges...will he last?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, not beta'd or Brit-picked, feel free to leave concrit in the comments. I should be finishing this up rather soon, probably posting again tomorrow.

Sherlock’s mind began working immediately trying to think of what John might mean. His thoughts were soon derailed by his discontent with his situation. He hated punishments where John left him alone. He liked being the focus of John’s attention and besides, the solitary time was tedious. Plus, it made him feel like a naughty child with his nose in the corner. He started to think of old cases and plan future experiments to take his mind off his boredom and the aching in his calves. When that was no longer distracting, he started to go through the list of elements in his head, with their atomic weights, boiling and freezing points, and common ions.

By the time he got to Ununoctium, he was sure that John had forgotten about him. It must have been at least an hour that he had been like this, probably more like two. If John had fallen asleep, he could be here for hours. He wanted to check the clock, but to do so he would have to drop the penny under his nose. After a minute of internal debate, he decided that it was worth the chance on not getting to cum tonight if he turned out to be wrong.

As he turned his head, he heard the penny clang to the ground just as he caught sight of John, standing in the doorway, watching him. “Really Sherlock? It’s been thirteen minutes. If you can’t hold still all on your own for thirteen minutes, the rest of this hour will not be easy for you.” 

Sherlock looked back to the wall and sighed in frustration. How could he be so stupid? Obviously John wouldn’t forget about him during a punishment. He had let his mind get away from him, and convince him that over an hour had passed. John knew just what to do to him to fog his mind. Despite his displeasure at his own mistake, Sherlock grinned. Of course John could manipulate him, because John understood him more than anyone else he had ever met. Sherlock also knew John better than anyone else, which meant that he knew the punishment was about to get more difficult. His cock twitched in excitement and he steeled himself for the challenge. 

John walked into the room with a tray that Sherlock couldn’t see from his position against the wall. “Since it’s clear that you’re already not taking this lesson seriously, I can tell it’s time to up the ante.” 

John grabbed Sherlock’s favorite riding crop off the tray and cracked it against his hand. Sherlock recognized the sound immediately and felt himself grow hard in anticipation. God, he loved that crop, and John handled it so masterfully. He just hoped that he could stay still while the spanking was administered, or risk dropping more pennies.

The first smack across his arse caught him by surprise and jolted him enough that he dropped the penny from under his right thumb. John made a disapproving clucking nose. “At this rate, you’ll have dropped all the pennies before I even get to the real challenge.” Sherlock steeled himself for the next blows. He couldn’t risk to drop anymore, especially with the promise of a challenge. 

John continued his assault for several minutes, hitting Sherlock’s arse and upper thighs at a rapid tempo, but being careful to never hit the same place twice. The redder his skin got, the louder Sherlock’s moans of arousal got. “Keep quiet. I’d rather not have to gag you with your scarf. That’s how you got yourself in this mess in the first place.”

“Sorry, sir. I’ll try to stay quiet.” Sherlock knew it would be difficult to be quiet now that his burgeoning erection was starting to bob against his stomach with each blow of the crop, but he wanted to show John he could be good. 

“You’d better. I know you love the crop, but you’re supposed to be showing me how much control you have over yourself, and that includes the noises you make.”

John returned to his work and began a crisscross pattern with the marks he had already made. Sherlock sucked in breaths on some of the worst blows, but kept his moaning to a minimum. He was doing well keeping still until a surprising smack to his inner thigh caused him to flinch. Luckily he was able to keep all the remaining pennies in place. Slowly but surely, John moved his way up Sherlock’s inner thighs with rough smacks of the crop. When he landed a light blow to Sherlock’s bollocks, however, he reacted with enough motion to dislodge the pennies from under his left thumb and right pinkie finger. 

John stepped back to admire the red backside of his lover. “Look at the sweet arse, all red and hot. Not to worry, I’ll make it feel better.” Sherlock heard John move away from him and return to the table where he had set down the tray. He heard the clatter of the crop being set down before John left the room. 

Sherlock assessed his situation: aching calves and bollocks, red and likely bruising arse, full erection, and only seven pennies left. His best case scenario at the moment was being edged four times a day for four days before being allowed to cum. While that seemed bearable, the consequence of dropping all eleven pennies did not, so he would have to work harder to keep control of himself. As he heard John return to the room he mentally prepared himself for whatever the clever doctor could throw at him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Things get harder for our detective...his cock included.

“These marks look like they might bruise, so I thought I’d put some ice on them.” Sherlock felt a cold bowl balanced on the small of his back. As John warned him not to drop it, Sherlock groaned internally. He despised that bowl. It was a metal bowl that John used occasionally whenever he wanted to torment Sherlock with ice. But the worst part about it was that John never placed it on a nearby table or on the bed. He always placed it on or touching part of Sherlock’s body, that way there was always on part of his body being tortured by the cold temperature. 

Sherlock remembered on one particularly terrible night when John had tied him spread-eagle to his bed and teased his cock mercilessly for hours, never letting him cum. At one point he had looked down at Sherlock’s testicles and commented: “Well those look quite swollen. It would be remiss of me as a medical professional to leave them untreated.” He had left the room and returned with that damned bowl full of ice before placing it on the bed between Sherlock’s legs, directly touching his testicles. Sherlock had protested quite loudly, but the ball gag in his mouth had kept his comments quite unintelligible. Instead he had thrashed on the bed trying to remove the freezing item from his delicate scrotum, until John halted his movements by adding a strap to hold his waist to the bed. The resulting “lesson” from John had been particularly effective, and Sherlock never once forgotten to label an experiment in the fridge again. 

Sherlock felt the first of the ice cubes touch the skin of his back and shivered as John ran it down his spine.

“I thought this was for the marks you made?” 

“Getting surly, are we? Fine, I’ll treat your arse.” John promptly shoved the entire piece of ice into Sherlock’s exposed arsehole. Sherlock yelped in response and began to shift around trying to dislodge the ice. John gave him a firm smack on his left cheek. “You’ll keep that inside you or there will be consequences.”

Sherlock tried to collect himself despite the unbearable coldness he was experiencing and glanced over to notice that he had dropped the penny from under his left pinky. He figured that he had lost control of it when the ice had been shoved inside him. “Yes, sir.”

John seemed satisfied with that response and resumed his task of tormenting Sherlock with a new ice cube. This one started like the other, going down his bumpy spine, before reaching the bowl and moving around it and finally approaching his red arse. Despite the intent, Sherlock had to admit that the ice cube felt soothing on his hot skin. He was starting to think that John was more of a softie than he would like to admit. That thought left him when John reached for two new nice cubes and held one against each of his nipples for several seconds. Just when Sherlock thought he could stand the sensation any more, John moved the ice of his nipples and down to his belly. He made nonsensical patterns on the soft flesh of Sherlock’s stomach before moving them down to his groin. 

“How could I forget, your arse wasn’t the only thing I hit with that crop.” That was the only warning Sherlock got before both pieces of ice were held against his bollocks. His squirming returned in full force as he tried to remove his most sensitive flesh from the cold torment. With a clang, he heard the metal bowl fall to the ground and immediately stopped moving. John removed the bowl from the ground and gathered up the ice that had fallen before returning to Sherlock’s side.

The detective was sure that he looked quite a site by now, what with his arse red and dripping water and his muscles starting to tremble to hold the position. He took a deep breath to calm himself in preparation for whatever John planned to do as punishment for breaking the order to keep the bowl in place. 

“It’s been forty minutes since your lesson started and you have dropped five of the pennies that I trusted you to hold. I had planned on going easy on you for the last twenty minutes, but apparently you can’t even follow simple orders. That means its time to bring in a little hair of the dog that bit you.”

Sherlock frowned in confusion at the sudden mention of dogs. What did John mean? He was going to do something involving dog hair? Didn’t John know that most dogs have fur? He listened as John walked over to the tray, only to hear the familiar snick of the cap to a tube of lubricant opening. Soon he felt two of John’s slick fingers running between his already wet cheeks before probing one inside. His cock began to stiffen again with the more sensual touches as John started to stretch his hole with one, then two fingers. Sherlock let out a loud moan when the fingers brushed against his prostate, sending sparks straight to his cock. 

“Don’t get too excited, Sherlock. I don’t think you’re going to like this very much.” John quickly removed his fingers to Sherlock’s displeasure and walked away again. After hearing a clatter on the tray, Sherlock soon felt a pressure on his arsehole as something was pushed, not too gently, inside. He recognized it as the prostate massager that had been part of their scene last night, the one that had resulted in his current punishment. John turned it on to its highest setting and spent a couple minutes just watching Sherlock try to deal with the stimulation before stepping away.

“The vibrator will remain on for the rest of your punishment and while I know that you can’t cum from prostate stimulation alone, it will make the rest of your skin more sensitive. This is rather unlucky for you as I plan to spend the last ten minutes of your lesson tickling you.”

Whether Sherlock’s gasp was from the pleasure of the vibrator or fear of being tickled even he didn’t know. All he knew was that if John started to tickle him in earnest, he didn’t think he’d be able to hold still for ten seconds, nevermind ten minutes.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The last installment of "A Use for Pennies" in which we find out if Sherlock lasts through the lesson or has to try again in 11 days.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not beta'd/Brit-picked blah blah blah. Would love concrit. Meow.

"I hope for your sake that your self-control has improved quite a bit during this lesson, or at least that you’re less sensitive than the last time I tickled you.”

Sherlock hoped the same as he tried to focus on John’s words while the prostate massager kept distracting him. Like with the ice, tickling was another punishment that John used that Sherlock didn’t particularly enjoy. When ever he tried to tell John that though, he would just tell him that he’s not supposed to enjoy punishments. Sherlock could understand that, as his earlier erection caused by the spanking was a testament to the fact that it would be an ineffective punishment tool.

No, John much preferred to overstimulate Sherlock as punishment rather than cause him pain: exposing him to extreme temperatures, tickling him, and one unfortunate time (when he had nearly killed Mrs. Hudson with an experiment) wanking him for hours on end until he was dry-shooting after cumming eight times in a row. Sherlock still feared the return off that particular punishment. 

John could be equally cruel with his choice of tickle torture. Once he had tied Sherlock to the bed while he was sleeping and woke him by tickling his vulnerable arm pits. When Sherlock finally managed to stop laughing long enough to gather enough breath to speak, and express to John that he had to use the bathroom, as he hadn’t since the night before, John ignored his pleas and tickled even harder. When Sherlock had finally given up hope and wet the bed, John had continued to tickle him while teasing him mercilessly for doing something so childish as wetting the bed and saying that he’d have to ask Mrs. Hudson if she had any of those plastic sheets for the incontinent. Since that punishment, Sherlock had never trusted John’s recommendations that he drink more water, for fear that they were a set up for a repeat performance. 

Luckily for Sherlock, John started his current tickling slowly, using a stiff feather on his face. Had he not already lost the penny under his nose, it would have been a goner when John started tickling around and then slightly inside his nose. His ears were no better and he flinched away from the itchy touch.

Despite his discomfort at the feather’s touches to his face, Sherlock wished they would return when John started to move the feather down to his neck and collarbones. He was more ticklish there and it was starting to get difficult not to respond to the torment with giggles or pulling away. Sherlock could tell that John was holding back for the moment, and the anticipation of full force tickling was enough to make him shudder.

Soon Sherlock felt John move down to stroking the feather across his cock and bollocks, causing him to arch his back and moan at the sensation combined with the toy in his arse. John didn’t remain in that area for more than a minute though, and Sherlock happily welcomed the disappearance of the feather. He took the moment took glance at the clock and saw he only had five minutes left and felt a bit of hope start to bloom in his chest that he might only have to suffer for the five days his dropped pennies were worth.

His hope was short lived however, when John carefully picked up one of Sherlock’s feet, greatly testing his balancing abilities. When Sherlock felt the bristles of a hairbrush scrape against his right foot, he let out a yelp and pulled his foot back to safety, while dropping the pennies from under the middle and ring finger of his left hand. While mentally berating himself for his mistake, John verbally berated him as well.

“Sherlock, you know that you’re not allowed to try to stop any of punishments.” This was true: on the rare occasions when John did not tie Sherlock down, or up for that matter, during his punishments, Sherlock was expected to hold still and not interfere. While Sherlock particularly disliked this form of punishment, he was also slightly proud of John for being so clever as to make him fight his own instincts and submit to John’s whims. He felt less proud in the actual moment though, like when he had to hold still after John sprinkled itching powder all over him. 

Sherlock, still being tormented by the vibrator, had to stop panting for a moment to respond. “I’m sorry, sir.”

“Good. I’m waiting.” Sherlock took a deep breath and lifted his foot to return it to John’s hand. “Good boy.” Sherlock began trembling and laughing uncontrollably while John scraped the brush over his toes, heel, and arch. By sheer will power he was able to stop himself from pulling his foot away or drop any more pennies when John moved to his left foot to repeat the actions.

Sure that he could bear it no longer, Sherlock was about to give up and retract his foot from John’s grasp when the doctor stopped his efforts and put the brush down. 

Sherlock sighed in relief, confident that his “lesson” was over and that he had pulled through still holding four pennies. He was therefore rather shocked when John’s scrabbling fingers dug into his arm pits. The pennies under the middle and ring fingers of his right hand fell almost immediately, leaving Sherlock holding two pennies to the wall with the rest of his fingers clenched into fists. Over his uproarious laughter, he heard John counting down from thirty and forced himself to hold on. He made it until the last ten seconds before pulling his left arm down to protect it and forfeiting that penny. 

When John hit zero and declared the lesson over, Sherlock fell to his knees but kept his right arm up, still holding that last penny to the wall with whatever pride he had left. As he tried to slow his breathing, he felt John stroke his sweaty back and tell him he had done a good job before removing the prostate massager from his arse. Sherlock nearly panicked when John tried to remove his hand from the wall before realizing that he didn’t need to hold the penny any longer. He released to John before lowering his arm to his side, trying to keep that hand, as well the other, away from his hard cock. He knew he was not allowed to touch it without permission, even if it had been stimulated by a vibrator on his prostate for the last twenty minutes. 

He watched John pick up the tray and move it into another room (the bathroom, he deduced, as at least one of the toys requires cleaning and John is nothing if not sanitary), and return with a flannel and a glass of water. He knelt down and cleaned off Sherlock’s body (as if it was one of his toys, Sherlock thought cynically) with the flannel, wiping away sweat and water as Sherlock reluctantly took a sip from the glass. After finishing, he pulled Sherlock into his arms and started carding his fingers through the sub’s hair. 

“Oh, drink up. You’ve already had your punishment for the day, there’s no need to worry about ulterior motives. Besides, you sweated quite a bit and your body needs to replenish it’s fluids.”

Sherlock started to drink the water more rapidly, finding it helped him to relax a bit more. 

“What you really need to be worried about is being edged ten times a day for the next ten days. That’s not going to be a walk in the park.”

At John’s reminder, Sherlock took a bigger gulp than he meant to and choked a bit. Well at least it wasn’t eleven days and a repeat of that experience, Sherlock thought. There was still one thing that was bothering him about the whole thing though.

“Sir?

“You can call me John now, your punishment is over…well, over for today anyway. That is unless you try to take advantage of that erection.”

Sherlock looked down at his still hard cock. “Wouldn’t dream of it, Sir, er, John.”

“Good, what’s your question?”

“I’ve been wondering about something you said earlier…”

“Yes?”

Sherlock turned to look at John with a bewildered look on his face. “Why were you talking about dog hair earlier?”

John grinned and shook his head, convinced that sharing a flat with a sociopath was the best decision he ever made.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm thinking about continuing this tale in another part, mostly so I can use the name "In for a Penny, in for a Pound," but also so I can tell the story of Sherlock's edging punishment. I don't know if I have it in me to keep writing so consistently though. I'll think about it and if you want to be informed if it actually happens you can uhh, crap there's no messaging option on here right? Subscribe to me or give me your email in comments I suppose? Or if there's some other way to contact people through here leave it in the comments so I'll be informed and stuff. Yeah...super eloquent End note, amiright? I hope I don't sound this confused in my stories.


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